CHESTER COUNTY, S.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — It’s been nearly nine months since Chester County deputies arrested a suspect in the murder of Donna Coley.
Investigators found her body in an abandoned mobile home after an 11-day search.
Ronald Coley still gets emotional thinking about his ex-wife.
“It’s been horrible. Horrible. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy if I had one,” Coley said after the hearing.
It was last May 30th when Donna Coley was killed and left in an abandoned trailer in Chester. Investigators found her body 11 days later and arrested 70-year-old Thomas Glenn for her murder.
Glenn’s hearing to review evidence in the case was scheduled for Tuesday- but he waived it.
“I’m not going to let Thomas Glenn destroy my life.. And my 15-year-old daughter by carrying all that hate around,” Coley said.
Ronald Coley wants justice, but it’s not keeping him from offering some mercy.
“I’ve come to a point where I have forgiven him, not to a point. I have forgiven him,” Coley said.
And he says that process wasn’t easy.
“Like everybody, I guess we all have a problem. But she is still a human being and Lexi will never have her mom around anymore too, for any event, for anything. And that’s the hardest part to accept. And we just got to pick the pieces and go home. I mean, I don’t know what else to say,” Coley said.
He paid to have the mobile home torn down two months after her death. Coley says that helped the entire family with their grief.
“Because I didn’t have to look at it no more. Her kids don’t have to look at it no more. I’ve been by there a dozen times since then, and now, It’s just another location,” he said.
He and their 16-year-old daughter Lexi were prepared to give victim’s statements at the Chester County courthouse. Coley believes Glenn waived the hearing because of regret.
“I think he has remorse for what he did. I think he has a conscience, he just made a mistake,” Coley said.
Now, the Coleys will wait for the next legal step, which could include a possible plea bargain for Glenn. Until then, the family continues to live with grief.
“I miss her every day. There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t think about her,” Coley said.
